AarinNerds

i thought of that too

but it makes it worse, since i don't speak japanese at all.
although, with his icy personality and little conversational interests, i'd be fine if i were half-mute

Right, see, you can't be Bya-kun b/c you're actually NICE and you can hold a pleasant conversation

Whoa, we're scaring all the other Nerds away! With our Bleach-talk

i'm a notorious spammer, apparently not even social groups are safe from me, there's no telling what i'll do next.

i'm not that nice...

You're very nice Sickeningly sweet, even. I see hearts and smiley faces glitter around your name when you're online

Here is a thought ---> online personas. I've been interested in the online personas that people put forth, particularly young people, when they go online. Youtube comments in particular interest me, the way that young people comment on movies or anime episodes, etc. It seems to me that people feel more free to be critical, even hurtful, when they don't have to insult someone face-to-face. I wonder what this is doing to the psyche of children today? How does this relate to the fact that many of us are raging yaoi fangirls online, but in "real life" we are "normal" career women, moms, and high school students?

i am deeply disturbed by your glittering imagery

i'm fascinated by online personas frankly and i'm pretty sure there's a thread about this, rotting somewhere on the forum. it appears to be the ultimate outlet - you get to be whoever you want, do whatever you please, with no real consequences whatsoever. it's highly tempting . the online persona can be completely different from the actual person behind the computer, even have a different gender. honestly, i think the online persona is the real thing, outside all kinds of boundaries, since this is a fictitious world that is not subject to the usual laws and conventions.

i would love to elaborate more, but the other me, the career woman, has to wake up really early in the morning for a really early meeting

well for one thing, online is pretty much anonymous. you can have a flaming war in size 12 Times New Roman, but none of the people you argue against is going to show up at your door to demand an apology (well unless there was a stalker in a rare case >_>) you can also be anyone you want, pretend to be a movie critic just because you think you've seen a lot of movies, or be an art critic because you've seen a lot of fanart, its just like, because you will personally not be held responsible for your comments (this is talking in fandoms, not if it was something actually criminal like terrorism or robbery or the like) so its total freedom to express what would otherwise be deemed rude or out of line, but something that we're really thinking inside.

with yaoi fangirling, i think it's still like being embarrased to admit that you've got some mills and boon on your bookshelf next to the 'tale of two cities' and 'pride and prejudice' ... and also the same as guys hiding their porn collection there's still the society's sort of frowning upon the voyeurism of sex, but everyone does it anyways. there is this stereotype that guys are interested in sex more than girls. so we're considered weird or slutty for liking something like yaoi (even though a lot of it is romance and not just sex) while guys liking porn or hentai is just dismissed as 'oh, he's a guy!' ... thus we find refuge and solidarity online like here on aarin

going off on a tangent here ... there's also the exaggerated persona which i find interesting, and the only example i can think of is capslock_bleach ... im sure that most of the people who post there wont talk like that in real life (maybe ), but the internet and the typed interface has really just created entire new languages or new volabulary of 'english' that can only be understood by the younger generation <--- i had to rely on urban dictionary to find out what was meant by otz or pwp or ftw there was stuff i still dont understand ... like "made of win" ... i spent many years learning english when i was younger to get to the stage where i can converse without having to think of what i need to say, and all that really didnt help because this phrase grammatically doesnt make sense, since win is a verb. but eventually i got the gist of their meaning after reading the comments and the context in which they are written.

oops this is a bit long -_-;

Wow. Look at all the stuff I missed.

I'm pretty much like the rest of you, I don't talk about yaoi or even anime at all in my everyday life. In fact I really try to distance myself from this world because of the negative connotations. I didn't want to appear immature, or obsessed. Because I'm not obsessed and in pretty much anything obsessed people tend to get on my nerves a bit, just like the lit snobs I had to deal with in college or know-it-alls anywhere.

So...next. I guess my online persona is a free and happy yaoi lover! I try not to say negative things online, because I figure it doesn't really matter what I say to people I'll never really exist to, so might as well make people feel good. Plus I'm way to lazy to comment on something that I didn't like or didn't really care about.

Oh and if someone could explain that "made of win" thing to me too...that would be totally rad...

Hello everyone!

Just skimming through the conversations you guys were having, I think they're quite interesting

I do like that topic of online personas. Internet did make everything impersonal and personal at the same time. It's an opportunity to present yourself in a whole another way completely different from your real life, of course this is demonstrated quite well in certain games like Second Life, and even on social networks like MySpace and Facebook.

I do try to keep my real life and internet persona similar. On facebook I sometimes say stuff I wouldn't say in real life, but I still feel like there's a hold on me since I'm surrounded by people I know in person.

On the other hand,I feel I don't need to hold myself back when I'm on Aarinfantasy, I don't feel judged, and I don't have to worry about people I know in real life

@unsteady: To be "made of win" means it's awesome. XD If I were to say something is "made of fail" would mean it sucks. But of course, the meanings go beyond that, but I actually kinda find this hard to explain, even though I understand what they refer to, and how they are used in context.

Just the other day, I finally found out what "idk" was, I had a huge rant about it with my friends the other day about it. Long story short, it was a message on facebook, and I thought the person was being absolutely lazy if she couldn't type out a few words. It wasn't as if she were on AIM, or texting, and she clearly had time. Stuff like that angers me for some reason

"idk" ... ARRRRRG that one drives me nuts. My little cousins are on MySpace, and the girl (she's 19) is always posting these bulletin surveys, and I swear to god, she answers every question with "idk". If you DON'T KNOW, why are you filling out the dang survey?!

*puff, puff* Okay, done now

My online persona is ... pretty much like me in real life. I try really hard to be nice but am also hyper-conscious of my own faults. I'm a bit bossy and tend to remind people about rules and codes of conduct a lot I'm aware of that tendency and am trying really hard to hold back. I wonder if I'm bossy in real life ... Probably

@blu chocobo - thank you for the explanation...though I still feel a bit confused. I've never heard the term used in conversation (yet).

Personally I think all the online chat terms and language is fine. For the Internet. When I hear kids saying they "pwned" (pronounced by teens as "pohwned" and younger kids as "pawned.") I feel saddened. If the idk or lol or omg enter (even more) into spoken language I will despair. It's like using secretaries shorthand for conversation. In my opinion (yes I spelled it out...I'm an old grumpy English major ) it lessens the informational (both in terms of the message and the speakers feelings) content of whatever the speaker is trying to communicate.